Esko managed to do keep Providence Academy from scoring for most of Wednesday\u2019s semifinal, hunkering down behind a strong performance from junior center backs Eillee Straub and Maya Stuermer. But that defensive stand came after the defending state champion Lions had already scored twice in the first six minutes, a furious start, on the way to a a 3-1 victory. Their first score came from Greenway, the second from eighth-grader Elise Jensen redirecting Greenway\u2019s cross into the net.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Greenway\u2019s scoring] starts from their midfield,\u201d said Esko senior midfielder and Ms. Soccer finalist Britta Koski. \u201cSo [it\u2019s key] in our midfield, being able to mark up on the people who like to play the ball to her, and just trying to keep a tight grip on the midfield to not let those balls get played, and just letting our defense know that they have to step.\u201d<\/p>\n
Providence entered the game knowing it would have to solve Esko\u2019s puzzle. After that draw on the road in September, the Lions switched their formation from a 3-5-2 to a 4-3-3. They\u2019ve been playing that formation since, to notable success, putting up an average of 10 goals in their playoff games, minus Wednesday\u2019s match.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for us, in a way, we kind of took [that draw] personal, like that wasn\u2019t our best performance when we played them up there,\u201d Greenway said. \u201cAll of us have played [at state] for like four years in a row and have had that experience. We just came in knowing \u2018first five minutes.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
In the second half, it took a particularly spectacular goal from Greenway, cutting around a defender and curling in a left-footed strike from distance, to give Providence a cushion after Esko\u2019s Hannah Rautell scored and ensured the Lions wouldn\u2019t run away with this one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI personally like the challenge [of playing tough teams],\u201d said Providence senior defender Liz Hughes. \u201cI think we definitely play better when we\u2019re playing better teams. We play up to their level. \u2026 I think those games really show us what we are capable of as a team and help us with confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Esko managed to do keep Providence Academy from scoring for most of Wednesday\u2019s semifinal, hunkering down behind a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-260256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}